Google Is Heading Toward A Huge Mobile Milestone (GOOG)

Mobile devices will account for more than 50% of all paid ad clicks on Google in the U.S. by December 2015, according to a search marketing company that handles $6 billion in online spending.

What this means is that in 2015, for the first time mobile — not desktop — will be the de facto main screen of online life. The trend is likely to continue rolling as global smartphone penetration is only just over 60%, with over 1 billion users. There is still the other 40% of users who have yet to arrive in the mobile environment.

Marin Software analyzed the spending of its clients — large advertisers like Macy’s, Gap and Fossil, which are spending upwards of $100,000 per month on online advertising — and found that spending on mobile has risen from 21.8% to to 34.2% of all clicks in the U.S. in just the last year.

The company thinks this means mobile will account for half of all paid search clicks sometime next year:

That has the biggest consequences for Google. And that might be why Google stopped releasing its desktop vs. mobile revenue breakdowns several months ago. Actual dollars spent on Google are different from clicks, as many advertisers are still wedded to marketing in the declining desktop environment. And smartphone penetration is deepest in the U.S. Worldwide, mobile devices aren’t yet quite as predominant as they are in America.

Below is Google’s estimated mobile ad revenue share, according to Marin (via eMarketer). Clearly, Google is well on the way to becoming a majority mobile company in both clicks and revenue: